Taking All My Will Just to Run Alone
by mosylu
Summary: Of all the things Iris West feared since learning she had a death sentence, waking up alone wasn't one of them. It should have been. Westallen angst, written shortly before the finale.


(A/N) I wrote this at the end of April, before the last few episodes of the season, so please ignore any inconsistencies. Title from "Die for You" by Starset, as part of my musical prompts series

* * *

Waking up was both the best and worst moment of Iris's day.

The best because for an instant - that hovering instant in between consciousness and awareness - she didn't know what was wrong. She thought everything was fine. She thought she was still sleeping next to the love of her life, and that soon the ring on her finger would be joined by a wedding band.

The next moment, when she rolled over, or put her arm out, or even just opened her eyes, was the worst. Because she was always alone.

The lack of him seemed to engulf the bed, even though she was in it. The flat blankets, the smooth sheets, unused for three long weeks. A gaping black hole, dragging everything - the apartment, the world, her - into its emptiness.

She hunched into herself, turning her face into the pillow that no longer smelled like him. No matter what she did, she couldn't stop the vision of Barry being taken by the Speed Force - disintegrating for the second time in his life, and both times in front of her eyes.

It was a cruel business, this loving a superhero. But that was what she got for loving Barry.

Her phone, on her bedside table, jangled with a text. Wally. _U up sis_

She texted back. **Up**

It was their morning routine, as reliable as an alarm clock. She'd managed to talk him and her dad down to that, rather than coming over every morning to bang on her door, or on one particularly rough day, phase right through it. That was the first time she'd yelled at Wally since before Barry had disappeared, and sometimes she wondered if that was why he'd done it.

Iris knew she should get out of bed. That was the first thing you needed to do. Get out of bed.

But she rested the phone on her stomach and listened to the quiet. It was _so_ quiet in the apartment now. No breathing (and a little snoring, yes he did, no matter what he said) from next to her. No zip-zip-zip of a speedster who was paradoxically late. No clatter of breakfast making or bubbling burps of the coffeemaker. (Which had an auto setting, but she could never bring herself to use it because Barry always made the coffee in the morning. If she set the auto, it was like admitting to herself that she was going to wake up alone.)

Just … quiet.

Her phone jangled. _Good morning baby_

 **Good morning daddy**

 **I'm up, I really am**

Because it was her dad and he had a sixth sense about these things - she would think it was a meta power except that he always had - she slowly pushed the covers aside. Sat up. Put her feet on the floor.

Breathed.

That had been exhausting.

She pushed herself to her feet and wavered slightly, dizzy so far from the ground. Her bed, even with that gaping emptiness, called to her invitingly, telling her how soft and easy it was. How she could burrow into the pillow, burrito the covers around her, and lie there forever, her mind empty, until she dissolved and drifted away.

She took a step away from the bed, and then another. She bumped into the dresser and stood blinking at it for a second. Then she pulled open a drawer, almost at random, and took out underwear. It didn't match, and she didn't care.

She peeled out of the baggy Star Labs t-shirt she wore ( _You always steal my shirts!_ he'd said, laughing, and she'd said, _Do not, and anyway they're really soft!_ ) and dropped it on the floor.

Her phone jangled a third time, and then a fourth. _B'fast burritos today, what kind?_ Cisco asked.

Caitlin announced, _I'm picking up coffee_

 **Egg and cheese** she said to Cisco, and to Caitlin **thank you**

(She'd told Caitlin last week that she didn't need to get her coffee, or call her, or sit up all night with her. Caitlin had said, "I want to."

"Why?" Didn't Caitlin have enough problems of her own right now? After - well. After everything.

The other woman had stared at the screen full of calculations. Her eyes were still lighter than they had been. The latest dye job had taken unevenly, so her hair was patchy red-brown-white. Even though it was the height of summer, they never needed to turn on the A/C in Star Labs.

"It reminds me of who I am.")

The breakfast burrito wouldn't replace Barry's pancakes, and the Americano (two sugars, no cream) in a Jitters go-cup wouldn't replace Barry's coffee in a Notorious RBG mug, but it would fuel her.

She stood looking at the clothes in her closet with little interest. This dress, that blouse, that skirt, those boots. They all looked the same to her. She pulled a dress out and laid it on her bed so she wouldn't forget to put it on. She picked up the first pair of flat sandals that her hands landed on. She hadn't gotten a pedicure since mid-May. It didn't matter.

She didn't bother with jewelry.

She was up, and moving, and it was morning, and she was picking out clothes for work. These were all good things, she told herself.

She remembered that another good thing was personal hygiene. She went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, washed her face, brushed her hair. It all made her so tired she wanted to lie down on the cool tile floor and close her eyes for awhile.

The woman in the mirror, in a tan bra and blue panties, flat hair, no makeup, deep bags under her eyes - she looked like hell. Iris blinked a few times and watched the woman in the mirror blink as well. She sighed and reached for her makeup.

She was up and she was moving and she'd washed herself and put on deodorant and she'd picked out a work outfit and now she was putting on makeup. When she was dressed, she was going to walk out the door and spend an hour at Star Labs, working on ways to get her Barry back. And then she was going to go to work.

After work, she would go back to Star Labs and work some more until the day ran out, and she came back to this empty, quiet apartment, too tired to do anything but collapse into the too-big bed and sleep.

And tomorrow she would wake up alone again.

The empty place in the bed dragged her back toward it.

She couldn't fall into that black hole. She couldn't. She knew what had happened in the future-that-was-no-longer, when Barry had fallen deep into depression over losing her. Cisco, Julian, her dad, Wally had all fallen to pieces like a badly built Tinkertoy tower. They'd never gotten Caitlin back. Star Labs had fallen apart. The _city_ had fallen apart.

So, she couldn't.

She decided that the makeup she'd applied was enough. The woman in the mirror still looked like hell, but not quite as ragged a hell. A workable hell. A passable hell.

She griped the edges of the sink and gave herself the talk she'd given herself for three long weeks of mornings alone. "We will find him. We will bring him home. No matter what it takes."

She tried not to hear the echoes of Barry swearing to her that he wouldn't let her die.

It was June, and Iris West wasn't the one who was supposed to wake up alone.

FINIS


End file.
